Renovations at Chilhowee Park carry the promise of future pay-offs
by David Madison
When the National Street Rod Association gathers every May at Chilhowee Park for its annual celebration of motor muscle and chrome, the crowds of car enthusiasts bring with them plenty of spending money. They fill hotel rooms and restaurant booths, delivering an influx of $5 million to the local economy. Few other groups, aside from UT football fans, deliver as much.
In hopes that Chilhowee Park will draw other events and more visitors to Knoxville, the city has begun what could one day amount to a $17.5 million facelift for the park. This investment is expected to pump an additional $8.5 million into Knoxville's economy every year. By attracting more events to Chilhowee Park, the city anticipates a noticeable boost in state and local sales tax revenue, making the total annual take generated by events at the park roughly $2.3 million.
Business owners along Magnolia Avenue are now waiting to see if the renovated fairgrounds and exhibition halls can help the park attract more crowds and more customers to neighborhood businesses. Some area residents say that aside from the sound of revving street rods, the park has little impact on their lives and livelihood.
In its efforts to breathe life back into the park, the city council has already allocated $3.53 million. On Magnolia Avenue, that money has paid for sprucing up the park's south end. Barbed wire and chain link fences are being replaced by brick and decorative wrought iron gateways. By the end of the summer, the park's boundary on Magnolia Avenue and Prosser Road should look less like the edge of a vacant lot and more like an entrance to a small college.
Classy, exhibition-style architecture, say designers at Bullock, Smith and Partners, will recall Chilhowee Park's heyday when it hosted the Appalachian Expositions of 1911 and 1913. The entry way on Magnolia and Prosser will incorporate spanning arches and welcome the 220,000 visitors expected to attend this year's Tennessee Valley Agricultural and Industrial Fair in September.
By then, phase one of the Chilhowee Park overhaul is scheduled to be mostly complete. In addition to spiffed up gateways, fairgoers will also notice a new 8,000 square foot multi-purpose building where the old sheep barn used to be. And instead of locating the midway on either side of Magnolia, all games and rides will be moved to a paved open space near the entrance of the Knoxville Zoo.
Some money initially earmarked for Chilhowee Park is now slated for the zoo in the city's 1999-2000 proposed budget. The funds will contribute to the zoo's ongoing efforts to finance its own $18 million renovation, which includes everything from additional parking to new maintenance facilities for the zoo's staff.
Curtis Catron, with Bullock, Smith, is one of a team of architects overseeing work at Chilhowee Park. He insists the city's decision to shift money from his project to the zoo is not a setback. Instead, he says, "It's just the nature of the beast."
Catron explains that his firm planned for fluctuations in funding before it began re-vamping Chilhowee Park. Using estimates derived by Economics Research Associates, which has also done financial projections for the Walt Disney Company, Bullock, Smith predicted it will cost roughly $3.5 million for each phase of Chilhowee Park's five phase redevelopment plan.
"The thought at the time was that might be reasonable funding for each phase," says Catron, who speculates that the second phase—which could include a renovation of the historic Jacobs Building—may not be funded with a full $3.5 million. "It's all so flexible, you can't tie it down."
Catron says there is some movement afoot to make the spacious Jacobs Building a priority as soon as phase one is complete. And with the city government looking to partner Chilhowee Park with the new convention center, a re-done Jacobs Building—complete with new bathrooms and an air conditioning system—may one day host events that now go to exhibition halls downtown.
"That could be the end result—a shuffling between the park and the new convention center," says Ellen Adcock with the city's department of administration. So in addition to monthly antique sales and the occasional boat show, Christmas fair or dog pageant, the Jacobs Building has the potential to attract consumer shows like those currently gathering in the Knoxville Convention and Exhibition Center.
Unfortunately, the Jacobs Building looks more like a mangy mutt than the prized poodles that compete under its roof. When the exhibition hall opened in 1941, it replaced the Main Building, which was destroyed by fire in 1938. Though it's less ornate than the park's original showplace, the Jacobs Building was impressive by 1940s standards. Today, like the rest of Chilhowee Park, it's become a part of what Bullock, Smith describes as "a large, amorphous zone that lacks character."
The flair of Chilhowee Park's new entry ways, stately brick pillars, and extensive landscaping should prime the Jacobs Building for a competitive grooming. Catron envisions a day when visitors can pull into a grass parking lot and stroll past a pleasantly landscaped lake on their way to an event in the Jacobs Building.
"It's not that it has to compete with Knoxville," says Catron, describing the building's future. "It has to compete with other regions of the U.S."
Catron says the buzz about renovations has already started to attract new clients. "The rumors are generating a lot of interest," he says.
Chilhowee Park General Manager Tom Cinnamon, who helps book activities at the park, says the number of calls to his office is on the rise. Toyota and Nissan recently held rallies for its dealers and customers, with Nissan trucking in 50 loads of dirt to build a test-driving track. Cinnamon says he's trying to land another big client, which he will not identify, for this October. "It will be quite a unique event if we get it," he says.
According to projections laid out in the city's 1998 Chilhowee Park Master Plan, the fairgrounds could eventually hold as many as 108 annual events, "an increase of 60 percent, while the number of event-days could reach nearly 250."
Currently, Chilhowee Park is used by visiting clients about 130 days a year. The master plan estimates the improvements currently underway will increase activities at the park by 54 percent and bring in as many as 50,000 overnight visitors. Each of these visitors, says the Knoxville Tourist Commission, spends an average of $140 per day. No one knows how much of that money gets spent along Magnolia Avenue. But judging by the number of fast food restaurants and service stations, Magnolia appears to be where tourists fill up on grease and gas before driving to their hotels in another part of town.
Aside from a few low-end motels, Magnolia Avenue has no overnight lodging. It's a wide boulevard that could be seen as the exact opposite of Kingston Pike. Instead of being crowded with restaurants, car dealerships and shopping centers, East Knoxville's main strip does not appear to be bustling with activity.
However, Chilhowee Park's makeover may encourage more foot traffic in the surrounding neighborhoods, as the field between Magnolia and Martin Luther King Boulevard becomes a park of its own. Part asphalt, part grass, this is where the Tennessee Valley Fair used to set up rides and games. The area is now on its way to becoming more of a community green space.
At the nearby corner of Alice Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard, the community is also expected to gather at a new playground, complete with a plaza and gateway. And over by the East Tennessee Discovery Center, there are plans to tear down the chain link fence and carve out a neighborhood park and picnic area.
These amenities are designed to better connect the park with its immediate neighbors, but making Chilhowee Park's success contagious to nearby businesses will be a tricky process. The park's master plan does attempt to physically connect the facility with the adjacent streets. But as architect David Forkner puts it, "To get full economic development, it's going to take more than sidewalks."
"An awful lot of money comes into Chilhowee Park, but it leaves without going into the direct neighborhood," continues Forkner, reiterating a line Magnolia Avenue businesswoman Carolyn Bryant has heard before. The manager of Style Craft Florist, Bryant has just begun to meet with fellow business owners to discuss various projects happening all over East Knoxville.
Bryant says she began keeping tabs on Chilhowee Park when the new Timothy Avenue entrance was built. Now, laments Bryant, instead of automatically exiting on to Magnolia Avenue from I-40, visitors to the Knoxville Zoo, Discovery Center and other attractions at Chilhowee Park can drop off the interstate at Timothy Avenue and avoid her street.
This way, remarks Bryant sarcastically, "They don't have to drive through the 'hood."
Bryant believes negative hype about East Knoxville, fueled largely by news reports about drug busts and prostitution stings, has given Magnolia a bad rap. Bryant acknowledges her street's problems—abandoned houses, the absence of upscale restaurants and run-down store fronts—but sees more promise than problems along Magnolia.
In the Chilhowee Park Master Plan, the street's image problem is hinted at when planners describe how "Views of the fairgrounds along Magnolia are marred by fencing and adjacent businesses." These businesses, like the park itself, need every customer and investment dollar they can entice.
Whether or not the city's ambitious investment in the park pays off—and whether that investment benefits surrounding businesses—remains to be seen. In park parlance, future returns on the city's investment might be called a coming attraction; one that has yet to book an exact date.
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